Simplicity

Sooo... The Season, the one and only, is over. I'll be honest, Christmas is my favourite time of the year. Everything is bright and shiny and pretty. I love buying stuff for people, and yet another year, I've spent eight (8!) hours straight in Desi's kitchen baking Christmas cookies. See below. But right now, I'm sick. As in, someone on that darn train gave me a cold. Or something. I am sick, and I want blood oranges and herbal tea. And soup.  





Quick and dirty vegetable soup with sausage

I believe that a lot of people don't cook because they think it's complicated. Those of us who cook know that it can be, but often isn't. This soup is the opposite of complicated. It was one of those seat-of-the-pants things. I wanted soup, so I just used every available vegetable in sight.

1 leek, cut into rounds
3 potatoes, cut into small cubes
3 carrots, cut into rounds
some broccoli
some sausage
1 liter vegetable or beef broth
spices according to personal preference

Melt butter in a pan, add the leek, sautee for a moment. Add the broth, along with the potatoes and the carrots. Let cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes. The solidity of the potatoes is your indicator whether it's done. When they're sufficiently soft, add the sausage and the broccoli. I used three paprika sausages I bought in Germany, the size of hot dogs, more or less. They are sufficiently spicy, so I didn't add any pepper or similar to the soup itself. There are, however, a lot of sausages that go really well in vegetable soup, so feel free to pick your favourite. For the second leg, use the broccoli as an indicator of soup-readiness. Fresh broccoli takes longer than the one from the freezer, obviously. The sausages should get a good ten minutes to interact with the soup. That wasn't hard at all, was it?